Dandy Town 4

Robin Hood 3

Dandy Town Hornets were champions, then they weren’t. Robin Hood were losers, but may not be after all.

The Friendship Trophy final ended in confusion last night after questions were raised about the eligibility of Kevin Hurdle, who came on for Dandy Town in the 80th minute as a substitute for Clay Darrell.

The score was 3-3 at that stage and moments after Hurdle’s introduction Damon Ming scored the winner to give his side a record-setting fifth piece of silverware. For a time, however briefly, Dandy Town were the first team in Bermuda to hold all five domestic trophies at one time.

Unfortunately, Hurdle’s arrival on the pitch were where the problems began. Although a regular in the Hornets squad this season Hurdle’s name was not on the official teamsheet handed to George O’Brien Sr, the match commissioner, before kick-off yesterday, nor on the one that Ronue Cann, the referee, had.

O’Brien and David Sabir, the Bermuda Football Association’s general secretary, spent a considerable amount of time trying to get to the bottom of the situation after the final whistle.

The rarity of the incident means the BFA is taking its time in making sure where the fault for the mishap lies, although it is difficult to see how it was not with Dandy Town officials.

Certainly the look of dejection on the face of Jomar Wilkinson, the Hornets head coach, after he had spoken to Sabir, and the rather low-key trophy presentation some 30 minutes after the end of the game — his players were not given any winners’ medals — spoke volumes.

Robin Hood, meanwhile, were not given losers’ medals, either, and even after the crowds had drifted away, BFA officials were still meeting to discuss what to do.

“The BFA is investigating the situation and will make no further comment until that process is complete,” Sabir said.

An official statement on the outcome of that inquiry is expected to be made in the coming days, although Hood officials expect the trophy to be taken away from Dandy Town and handed to them.

It was an unfortunate end to what had been a pulsating final between a team chasing history and a Robin Hood side who were appearing in their first major final — and played that way for the first half.

Hood chased shadows for the majority of the first 45 minutes and were indebted to Jason Simons, their goalkeeper, for keeping them in the game. Some poor finishing by the Dandy Town strikers helped, too, but the overwhelming favourites still managed to score three unanswered goals in the space of 20 minutes.

Ming grabbed the first from the penalty spot when Corey Boyce, the Hood defender, was harshly adjudged to have fouled Jahtino Richardson-Martin inside the box. The situation got worse for Hood moments later when Daniel Andrade turned a Darrell cross into his own net. Darrell was Hood’s tormentor-in-chief all afternoon and his pace down the right caused numerous problems that Hood never successfully solved.

When Ayshaun Smith crashed in a third shortly before half-time, making up for a glaring miss in the first ten minutes, the game looked all but over as a contest. Even a goal for Liam Evans seconds later, which made it 3-1 at the interval, looked little more than a consolation.

“I think the occasion got to them [Hood], and we were pretty lucky to go in 3-1 down at half-time,” Kyle Lightbourne, the Hood head coach, said. “If you let that ball get away from you then you’re going to chase the game, and that’s what happened in the first half.”

As it was, Evans’s introduction in place of Tre Dill, who limped off injured after half an hour, changed the game. Dill was nursing a hamstring injury right up until kick-off, and Lightbourne admitted that the midfielder’s inclusion in the starting line-up had been a case of the Hood coach letting his heart rule his head.

Evans added some much needed pace into the equation and it was his persistence, combined with some lax Dandy Town defending, that led to Hood pulling level after Antwan Russell had given his side a lifeline when he got clear on the edge of the Hornets penalty area, took a long ball down on his chest and fired past Ajai Daniels.

The Town goalkeeper was caught in possession by Evans soon after, and the winger knocked in a cross that Russell headed home to complete a remarkable comeback.

Either side could have gone on to win it from there, with Russell, Tevahn Tyrell and Kacy Butterfield squandering good chances to put their side ahead for the first time. Hornets, meanwhile, missed opportunities of their own, and Smith and Richardson-Martin should have done better when presented with chances to score.

Then came Hurdle and Ming, and Dandy Town thought they had made history until the questions began.

For Lightbourne, there were mixed feelings at the end of what he called “a crazy day”. Pride in his players for not knowing when they were beaten, empathy with Wilkinson for possibly being denied by a simple mistake, and optimism for the future after an impressive display in the club’s first major final.

“It’s difficult to know how to feel about the result,” he said. “Hopefully they [the BFA] sort it all out in the right way. I would feel for Dandy Town if a simple mistake on their behalf [took the trophy away]. But he [Hurdle] came on when the game was at 3-3, which was a crucial time. Rules are rules and if you get them wrong you have to pay the consequences.”

Dandy Town, for the time being at least, have added the Friendship Trophy to their collection, a historic achievement for a side who were being tipped for relegation to the First Division only a month ago.

Whatever the outcome of the BFA investigation, Ming said his team’s performance showed that they were more than capable of defending their league title as well as winning more trophies.

“Everyone was writing us off, saying we were a relegation team, but look at us now,” Ming said. “We’re five points off the lead [in the Premier Division] and we’ve won the first three cups, so the season’s looking pretty bright right now.”